Gilpin: The Political Economy of International Relations

Gilpin, R, and JM Gilpin. 1987. The political economy of international relations. Princeton University Press Princeton, NJ.   

 "Over the past century and a half, the ideologies of liberalism, nationalism and Marxism have divided humanity...The conflict among these three moral and intellectual positions has revolved around the role and significance of the market in the organization of society and economic affairs" (25).

"These three ideologies are fundamentally different in their conceptions of the relationships among society, state, and market, and it may not be an exaggeration to say that every controversy in the field of international political economy is ultimately reducible to differing conceptions of these relationships" (25).

The word "ideology" is explicitly used to reference these different schools of thought because the word "theory" doesn't carry enough weight.  Ideology captures the relationship between the positive and the normative.

"Although scholars have produced a number of 'theories' to explain the relationship of economics and politics, these three stand out and have had a profound influence on scholarship and political affairs.  In highly oversimplified terms, economic nationalism...which developed from the practice of statesmen in the early modern period, assumes and advocates the primacy of politics over economics.  It is essentially a doctrine of state-building and asserts that the market should be subordinate to the pursuit of state interests.  It argues that political factors do, or at least should, determine economic relations.  Liberalism, which emerged from the Enlightenment in the writings of Adam Smith and others, was a reaction to mercantilism and has become embodied in orthodox economics.  It assumes that politics and economics exist, at least ideally, in separate spheres; it argues that markets--in the interest of efficiency, growth, and consumer choice--should be free from political interference.  Marxism, which appeared in the mid-nineteenth century as a reaction against liberalism and classical economics, holds that economics drives politics.  Political conflict arises from struggle among classes over the distribution of wealth.  Hence, political conflict will crease with the elimination of the market and of a society of classes" (25).

"All forms of economic liberalism...are committed to the market and the price mechanism as the most efficacious means for organizing domestic and international economic relations" (27).

Assumptions:  spontaneous market development; individuals form the foundation of society; they are rational in a specific way; there is free information; there is a tendency towards stability; there are always absolute gains to trade.

 

Nationalism:  "Its central idea is that economic activities are and should be subordinate to the goal of state building and the interests of the state.  All nationalists ascribe to the primacy of the state, of national security, and of military power in the organization and functioning of the international system" (31).

Viner (1958) quote:  "'I believe that practically all mercantilists, whatever the period, country, or status of the particular individual, would have subscribed to all of the following propositions:  (1)  wealth is an absolutely essential means to power, whether for security or for aggression; (2) power is essential or valuable as a means to the acquisition or retention of wealth; (3)  wealth and power are each proper ultimate ends of national policy; (4)  there is long-run harmony between these ends, although in particular circumstances it may be necessary for a time to make economic sacrifices in the interest of military security and therefore also of long-run prosperity'" (32).

 

"Whereas liberal writers generally view the pursuit of power and wealth...as involving a tradeoff, nationalists tend to regard the two goals as being complementary" (32).  (this passage references Knorr (1944))

 

The nationalist is keenly interested in industrialization.

 

"As Robert Heilbroner (1980) has argued, despite the existence of...different Marxisms, four essential elements can be found in the overall corpus of Marxist writings.  The first element is the dialectical approach to knowledge and society that defines the nature of reality as dynamic and conflictual; social disequilibria and consequent change are due to the class struggle and the working out of contradictions inherent in social and political phenomena...The second element is a materialist approach to history...The third is a general view of capitalist development; the capitalist mode of production and its destiny are governed by a set of 'economic laws of motion of modern society.' The fourth is a normative commitment to socialism" (35). 

"In a world of competing states, the nationalist considers relative gain to be more important than mutual gain" (33).

Wallerstein: The Capitalist World-Economy: Essays

I Wallerstein, The Capitalist World-Economy: Essays (Cambridge University Press, 1979).

Ch. 1: The Rise and Future Demise of the World Capitalist System: Concepts for Comparative Analysis:

Wallerstein begins by exploring the phenomena of the industrial revolution. Some argued that this was the penultimate state of human development. Others, most notably Marx, argued that there were yet further states through which society must develop. Wallerstein briefly questions whether or not it is possible to skip stages, and argues that, if we are living in a world system, a world economy, than stages cannot be skipped. If they could be, then they would not be stages.

"Leaving aside the now defunct minisystems, the only kind of social system is a world-system, which we define quite simply as a u8nit with a single division of labor and multiple cultural systems" (5).

The author makes a distinction between world economies and world empires as global systems.

"World empires are basically redistributive in economic form" (6).

"By a series of accidents...northwest Europe was better situated in the sixteenth century to diversify its agricultural specialization and add to it certain industries...than were other parts of Europe. Northwest Europe emerged as the core area of this world-economy..." (18). "Capitalism was from the beginning an affair of the world-economy and not of nation-states" (19).

"There are today no socialist systems in the world-economy any more than there are feudal systems because there is only one world-system. It is a world-economy and it is by definition capitalist in form" (35).

Gill and Law: Global Hegemony and the Structural Power of Capital

S Gill and D Law, “Global Hegemony and the Structural Power of Capital,” Global Governance: Critical Concepts in Political Science 33, no. 4 (2004): 475-499.

"In this chapter we distinguish between direct and structural forms of power. We relate these to the concepts of hegemony, historic bloc and the 'extended' state, in our analysis of present-day capitalism. In so doing we seek to meet two major challenges. The first is to integrate better 'domestic' and 'international' levels of analysis. The second, related challenge, is to theorize the complementary and contradictory relations between the power of states and the power of capital" (93).

The authors start by distinguishing between the realist concept of hegemony and the Gramscian concept. The former argues that there is direct control of one over another, typically one state over another. The later concept argues that there is a set of structural forces that can exist that can create order. "A hegemonic order was one where consent, rather than coercion, primarily characterized the relations between classes, and between the state and civil society" (93).

"Our contribution here mainly concerns the theory of power. We assume that theories of power and hegemony must subsume both normative and material, structural and existential...dimensions of social relations. Part of the richness of Gramschi's concepts is that they combine these elements. Because of this, they offer clues for overcoming the gulf between structure and agency. We believe a possible key to the resolution of the structure-action problem in social theory more generally, and international relations theory in particular may be through the development of mediating concepts such as structural power and historical bloc" (94).3

We may be moving towards a post-Fordian conception of production, which is obviously global. Therefore, we must look at hegemony, blocs and the state from the perspective of the global. This involves a revolution in the social forms of accumulation. This has been referred to as a regime of accumulation. "A regime therefore broadly encompasses the forms of socio-economic reproduction which together constitute the conditions of existence of economic development in a particular historical period of epoch. As such there may be different regimes of accumulation...coexisting at any point in time" (95).

The post-WWII regime of accumulation was very successful at promoting growth in industrialized countries for four reasons. Firstly, the core (the US) was stable and secure. Secondly, the US was able to sustain growth through demand created through deficits and militarism. Thirdly, the system was sustained through "embedded liberalism". Finally, inexpensive inputs, especially oil.

"In a structural sense, what was occurring in the post-war period was the emergence of a globally integrated economy whilst political regulation at the domestic level was becoming ever-more comprehensive" (97).

The authors put emphasis on the emergence of capital markets as a crucial aspect of the establishment of capitalism as a socio-economic system. They expand on this by offering myriad examples of the power of international oligopolistic capital.

"At the international level, the bargaining power of transnational corporations would be reduced if most national governments were able to co-ordinate their regulations and financial concessions. however, even supposedly like-minded, and wealthy countries...like the EC have not been able to seriously discuss, let alone achieve this goal" (106).

Cohen: The Question of Imperialism

Cohen, B., The question of imperialism, Basic Books.

Ch. VII: Toward a General Theory of Imperialism

“Chapter I suggested that there are two issues of particular importance to any study of the subject of imperialism: (1) the form of dominance-dependence relationships, and (2) the force(s) giving rise to and maintaining them” (229). While imperialism can take many forms, is there a common essence that can be uncovered? Is there a taproot?

The core of imperialist logic, according to Cohen, is clearly not rooted in radical Marxist accounts of under consumption or the changing composition of capital. “The theories are all much too highly deterministic” (230). “All through history there have been innumerable examples of imperialism having nothing to do with the international capitalist economy or the presumed needs of its most advanced constituents” (230). “In short, Marxist and radical theories of economic imperialism do not stand up to close analytical scrutiny. All that needs to be said about them has by now been said. As intellectual constructs, they are like elaborate sand castles—a few waves of the incoming tide, and much of their substance gradually dissolves and washes away” (231).

While Cohen glibly dismisses any radical economic explanation for the drive towards imperialism, he also promotes his own universal understanding of the cause of international economic expansion and dominance: power politics. However, this drive to power should not simply be stated and left without an explanation. That is the mistake of many scholars who posit power politics as being the cause of war, etc., but who have not sufficiently explained why this is the case. Cohen argues that this logic derives from the international system level of analysis, and not the state-based level of analysis. The system level contains a homogenizing characteristic: anarchy.

Anarchy creates a situation in which states can never feel completely secure. This insecurity arises from the fact that no state can ever insure themselves against the actions of another state. The account is a very standard structural realist one. Marxist accounts fail because they look at the level of the state for international affairs explanations, and this simply misses the larger picture. The problem for states comes when they try to “operationalize” this insecurity in foreign policy.

The comparison is drawn between states in anarchy and firms in an oligopolistic market to demonstrate how foreign policy can be derived from this position of insecurity. In an oligopolistic market there is insecurity and vulnerability. Each firm would like to have a monopoly, but they understand this to be unfeasible. Firms must scheme and plan for their long-term stability.

States in this situation want to avoid dependence. One way to accomplish this is through dominance. “This means that imperialistic behavior is a perfectly rational strategy of foreign policy” (242).

This is the core of the argument. Cohen then goes on to list some possible criticisms of his argument: too narrow, too broad and too shallow (three iterations).

Gibson-Graham: The End of Capitalism (as we knew it)

Gibson-Graham, J., The end of capitalism (as we knew it), Blackwell Publishers.

Gibson and Graham provide a post-structural, feminist critique of orthodox Marxism. They conclude that Marxists have actually hurt their chances of overthrowing capitalism because they have engaged in a discourse that allows capitalism to be something larger, stronger and more intimidating that it actually is. The capitalist beast is not as imposing a beast as Marxism has painted it out to be. “Marxism has produced a discourse of Capitalism that ostensibly delineates as object of transformative class politics but that operates more powerfully to discourage and marginalize projects of class transformation…Marxism has contributed to the socialist absence through the very way in which it has theorized the capitalist presence” (Gibson and Graham 1997:252) Gibson and Graham provide a scathing critique of Marxist interpretation of globalization. These two authors fall into the Held and McGrew globalization skeptics position as they do not believe that the “penetration” or “immanent penetration” of capital into every corner of the earth is a reality, or that if such a reality did start to occur, that it could not be stopped.

They compare the “rape-script” with the “globalization-script” in one of their more striking passages. The “rape-script” allows all of us to see women as being rape-able and men as being possible rapists. Gibson and Graham take parts of the rape-script from Sharon Marcus where she, “challenges the inevitability of the claim that rape is one of the ‘real, clear facts of women’s lives’” (Gibson Graham 1997:121). We, by extension, are to challenge the reality that globalization/capitalism is one of the real, clear facts about the existence of citizens throughout the world.

This understanding of how the discourse surrounding rape has reinforced the idea that women are rape-able, open and vulnerable while men are hard, strong and potential violators helped to shape Gibson and Graham’s ideas surrounding globalization. The penetrating power of globalization has become, in many circles, an inevitability. Global capital will permeate and enter into any of the open, vulnerable developing countries. This has created a discourse that speaks us and shapes us; the globalization-script, and the eventualities it implies, may not be a reality. We are asked by the authors to reevaluate the potential for community based exchange that do not reinforce the dominant, globalization-script.

We must not become the victim of capitalism, we must make ourselves powerful. Even if our power is not initially evident, it becomes something greater as we reclaim the dialogue and shape it to our ends. This is how we make globalization lose its erection. This is how we create a world that is not dominated by one homogenizing economic system and dialogue.

Gibson and Graham then encourage us to go out and foster community based economic systems that value people. We are not to become subjects in the dominant discourse, but rather work on being stewards of our rhetoric and speak ourselves into a new discourse that does not build capitalism up into something that it is not. Gibson and Graham see globalization not as a real phenomenon that is inevitably creating one economic playing field where we will all gather. It is, on the other hand, a real phenomenon with limited scope whose real size has been artificially, and perversely, enlarged through an inaccurate discourse. The power to reshape our world does not lie in the hands of a few elite capitalists shaping the world in the interest of capital mobility, or politicians shaping the world in the interests of national capital or of global stability. The power to shape the world lies in the hands of individuals who are stewards of their rhetoric.

van der Pijl: Transnational Classes and International Relations

van der Pijl, K., 1998. Transnational Classes and International Relations, Routledge.

Van der Pijl provides a Marxist cut on globalization and capital accumulation. He looks at how the structure of international capitalism has grown and changed over time. He begins by looking at original accumulation and moves on through liberal internationalism, state monopoly tendency, corporate liberalism eventually landing us in our current state of neo-liberal organization. In this understanding of globalization, we can see that fractions of capital eventually create class fractions with one fraction being the hegemonic system of structuring and organizing global capitalism due to contingent circumstances.

Van der Pijl analyses systems of capitalism using two tools: commodification and socialization. The commodification of things is what originally created classes and is what shapes capitalism. In original accumulation, the earliest form of capitalism, van der Pijl points out that, “the primordial process in which capital itself crystallizes as a quasi-independent social force, imposing its discipline on a pre-existing social infrastructure by penetrating and transforming it, is commodification…This implies that the use value aspect of an element or item of social production…has to be subordinated to the exchange value aspect” (van der Pijl 1998:37). This initial subordination of use value to exchange value is the very first movement towards a globalized world.

Van der Pijl would claim that commodification has become ubiquitous in our society. When coupled with fetishism, defined as the phenomenon in which modern society resembles the most primitive community and the ascription of animate spirit and magical powers to dead objects, commodification becomes a divine tool allowing people to justify and ethically adjudicate between decisions using the mana and taboo of the market (van der Pijl 1998 11-4). This is a world where everything is either already commodified or in the process of being commodified, a world where everything is a product and every decisions comes from the deified market. This creates an atomized society.

This process of commodification also creates classes. Van der Pijl notes that classes form from exploitative social relationships. With the increasing intensity of commodification, there are more opportunities to create wealth. Through these increased opportunities to create wealth, there are also increased opportunities to exploit workers through the appropriation of unpaid labor. This process of increasing ability to exploit workers and appropriate unpaid labor is a class producing process.

The ameliorating response to this atomized society is socialization . This is defined as, “the planned or otherwise normatively unified interdependence of functionally divided social activity” (van der Pijl 1998:138). This planned activity must be carried out to reunite society again after the commodification of everything. Van der Pijl points out that the result of commodifying, land, labor and money, the three most difficult things to commodify, a process of socialization must occur to bring unity, calm and balance to society. Van der Pijl sees the process of socialization to be undertaken by a group of people that he refers to as the cadres. These people seem to fulfill two functions in van der Pijl’s account: they are the technicians who run the increasingly complicated process of capitalist production and those who, from a position of elite authority (though under the authority of the capitalist), control the mitigating processes of socialization.

Van der Pijl’s interpretation of the increasing speed and intensity of global interconnection has to do with his fractions of capital creating class fractions. “It is our thesis that the capacity of fractions of capital to appropriate a share of the total mass of profits shapes the sense of identity of a particular segment of collective capital with the momentary functioning of the system, short-circuiting the general interest with the special one” (van der Pijl 1998:58). When this general interest is short-circuited with a special one, a hegemonic economic structure emerges. This is taken, in van der Pijl’s example, to then be represented in the Lockean heartland. However, there are also contender states that question the legitimacy and challenging the preeminence of the hegemonic states. This dance between the hegemonic and contender states is represented in what van der Pijl calls a natural tendency, “towards global unification represented by capital, and by the fact that every concrete state/society complex is ultimately held together by a specific structure of power and authority mediating its relations with other such complexes” (van der Pijl 1998:64).

The Lockean heartland, representing the hegemonic economic structure of the time, is not entirely contingent or deterministic. Van der Pijl says that, “the internationalization of capital, then, historically does not evolve as an economic process in a fixed landscape of sovereign states. It is an aspect of a process of expansion of the state/society complex in which capital crystallized under what proved to be the most favorable conditions” (van der Pijl 1998:83 emphasis added). Whatever the most favorable conditions for capital at the time were contingent on the prevailing fraction of capital. The deterministic aspect of this function is that capital will always flourish and be attracted to the most favorable conditions for its reproduction.

The van der Pijl view of increasing speed and intensity of global interconnection, or globalization, can be seen as a mixture of determistic and contingent factors. Fractions of capital create class fractions which end up controlling hegemonic economic regimes and thus Lockean states. Their control is contingent on whatever fraction of capital is hegemonic at the time. Their control is also determistic because the logic of capital accumulation is such that it will always search out increasingly complex forms of exploitation and appropriation of unpaid labor, thus, in van der Pijl’s model, creating class distinction and class conflict. Also, the determistic process of commodification leading to fetishism creates the need for the quasi-contingent process of socialization undertaken by the cadre class. This cadre class is the ultimate protector and technician working for the global capitalist order, but also, in the eyes of van der Pijl, the class that can eventually lead us beyond the natural contradictions that occur within a global system of capitalism.

Panitch and Gindin: Global Capitalism and American Empire

Panitch, L. & Gindin, S., 2004. Global Capitalism and American Empire, Merlin Press.

The causes of globalization are seen by Panitch and Gindin to be fairly standard for Marxist scholars. In the beginning of their “Rethinking Imperialism” chapter, they note that, “There is a structural logic to capitalism that tends to its expansion and internationalization. This was famously captured in Marx’s description in the communist Manifesto of a future that stunningly matches our present” (Panitch and Gindin 2004:13). They then go on to quote Marx’s explanation of the international nature of capital expansion. However, this standard, initial accumulation of capital is complicated by the tool of capitalist accumulation: imperialism and the theory of inter-imperial rivalry.

The authors contrast the traditional account of inter-imperial rivalry with an account that takes the capitalist state to be the most important actor in the consolidation of capital as opposed to theories of economic states or crises. In the traditional account, imperialism was the tool of capitalist nations to internationalize capital. This was the result of a theory of crisis being seen as the impetus for capital expansion beyond national borders. Because this dynamic was occurring in a number of different countries, there would be a number of different imperial powers. The new markets would also eventually be saturated, thus causing home markets to suffer an exhaustion of consumption and the imperial nations would turn against one another. This is the space that inter-imperial rivalry occurred.

Panich and Gindin explain why this interpretation of inter-imperial rivalry was misinformed. In the opinion of these authors, the inter-imperial rivalry theorists were wrong because they were defective in their treatment of the dynamics of capital accumulation, they mistakenly used the theory of crisis to explain capital expansion, they failed to understand the spatial dimensions of internationalization, they mistakenly assumed that exhaustion of consumption within capitalist countries would lead to crisis and finally they wrongly stated that the deepening of capital would lead to less choice (Panich and Gindin 2004:17-8). What the authors conclude is that these theories of inter-imperial rivalry were only looking at very early stages of capitalism. This current iteration of capitalism that we are experiencing is based on a different set of drivers.

The authors then go on to explain how the capitalist state must be a more vital aspect of theorizing capitalist imperialism. They say that, “Capitalist imperialism, then, needs to be understood through an extension of the theory of the capitalist state, rather than derived directly from the theory of economic stages or crises” (Panich and Gindin 2004:18). Panich and Gindin focus on the contingent aspects of capital accumulation and adaptation to contradictions in capitalism. They see earlier Marxist thought as relying on a much too simple understanding of the separation of the economic and the political. The true nature of the interaction between the economy and politics is much more nuanced.

The inter-imperialist rivalry paradigm was changed by Panich and Gindin to incorporate global capitalist expansion without tension occurring between major capitalist nations. This global capitalist order needed a hegemonic power that drove the expansion and the unification of the capitalist states and, in this current iteration of capitalism, this leader was found in the United States. In Panich and Gindin’s version of globalization, there are two realms of capital: domestic and international. The interest of domestic capital was trumpeted by proponents of the old inter-imperialist rivalry theory of capitalist expansion. However, in this new version of capitalist expansion, the tension is not between the interests of capital from two industrialized nations, but rather the expansion of capital is in the interest of global capital more generally. This is seen as being a response to the instability that occurred after the first occurrence of globalization .

Therefore, we see national interest undermined by global capital interests. The U.S. takes control of the operation and standardization of rules for this capital, but not entirely in their own interest. Other nations are willing to submit to the leadership of the United States because order is valued more highly than domestic capital interests. Two world wars and a global depression allowed nations to see the value of a stabilizing, international capital order controlled through one hegemonic leader. “The point is that we need to distinguish between the expansive tendency of capitalism and its actual history. A global capitalist order is always a contingent social construct: the actual development and continuity of such an order must be problematized” (Panich and Gindin 2004:14-5).

Through this account of capital expansion, Panich and Gindin show us how a contemporary, Marxist account of globalization takes into consideration the changes brought about by the increased intensity and speed of global connections. The rules and structure of international capital changed in the last half of the 20th century. Before this time, they were primarily controlled by the interest of certain nations. Now, they have moved into the realm of post-national control. Still, capital accumulation is seen as being a deterministic driver of international affairs, but the structure and the rules that it follows are to be contingent. If capital does not deterministically create the rules and structure that govern capitalism, we have opened up the possibility for substantial change that has little to do with initial capital accumulation.

Wallerstein: Antisystemic Movements: History and Dilemmas

Wallerstein, Immanuel. (1990). "Antisystemic Movements: History and Dilemmas". In S. Amin (Ed.), Transforming the revolution : social movements and the world-system (pp. 187 p.). New York: Monthly Review Press.

The Creation of Antisystemic Movements and the Debate about Strategy, 1789-1945:

Wallerstein attempts to highlight and put into historical context different social movements, and eventually prescribe a set of policies and ideals that should be adhered to by progressives in the future. “The post-1945 history of these movements can only be understood or appreciated in the context of their history as organized continuing movements. And this history must perforce start with the French Revolution” (13). This movement was the cornerstone of all successive movements, having put the ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity on the global pedestal.

After the French revolution, he claims that other social movements were disorganized. For his example, he talks about the revolution of 1848. As this revolution was a broadly based proletarian uprising across Europe that was brutally crushes, Wallerstein takes the logical conclusion that social movements needed to become increasingly organized and coordinated. One could not overthrow a state without a structure to replace it. “…the primary lesson to be drawn from the experience of 1848 was the need for long-term political organization as the necessary tool with which their objectives might be achieved” (17).

Wallerstein then goes on to highlight revolutions and social movements that occurred after the revolution of 1848. These movements became increasingly socialist, though not uniformly. There were issues with the implementation of socialist movements globally, and there was specifically a rupture between socialist movements and nationalist movements. “The socialist movements were to be found largely in core countries, the nationalist movements largely in peripheral ones” (23).

Postwar Success of the Movements: Triumphs and Ambiguities:

“People resist exploitation. They resist as actively as they can, as passively as they must” (27).

He looks at the three “worlds” and claims that, in many ways, in and around the era of 1945, many antisystemic movements felt as if they had won. There had been large movements towards socialist governance throughout the globe. “…the period after 1945, in at least a majority of the countries of the world, representing at least three-quarters of the worlds’ population, the ostensible intermediate objective of nineteenth-century antisystemic movements—the coming to power either of a workers or of a popular movement—had in fact occurred” (33).

“To be antisystemic is to argue that neither liberty or equality is possible under the existing system and that both are possible only in a transformed world” (36).

“Let us therefore sum up the experience of the post-1945 coming to power of the movements. Each kind of movement put into effect some very great reforms which have earned them substantial popular support. There were some great changes of which the movements could boast and whose consequences were visible. At the same time, despite initial advances in social equality, political liberty, and international solidarity, in the long run, the movements disappointed, and disappointed greatly…” (38).

Forward to What? The Debate on Strategy Reopened:

He highlights some of the important movements post WWII that have shown themselves to be antisystemic, but wonders where we are really going. 1968 represented a year in which a new wave of antisystemic movements erupted. He posits that we need to think about both long-term and short-term strategies.

Agenda for the Movements:

“The lesson of 1848 was that spontaneous uprisings were not viable as a path of serious social or national revolution. Social transformation requires social organization. It was out of this lesson that the ‘old’ antisystemic movements were born. We have argued that 1968 marked the emergence of ‘new’ antisystemic movements that were protesting against the successes (that we see as failures) of the ‘old’ antisystemic movements” (48).

He sees four things that must happen: repolitization of the base, reconceptualization of the understanding of transformation in society, bring together diverse movements in a “family”, and, the “deghettoization” of social movements (48-53).

Lenin: Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism

Lenin, Vladimir Il Ich. (1996). Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism: Pluto Press.

This text, originally published in 1916, explains a historical materialist perspective on the imperialism of the early twentieth century. Lenin describes how imperialism is a late, in his word “moribund” stage of capitalist development that came about after the monopolization of production domestically and the need to search for markets abroad. This eventually led to the partition of the globe into different spheres of economic and political influence which also contributed to imperialist wars either between different imperial powers or to subdue native populations.

The first chapter of this book is used to outline the beginning development of late capitalist production’s tendency towards monopolization. “The enormous growth of industry and the remarkably rapid process of concentration of production in ever-larger enterprises represents one of the most characteristic features of capitalism” (11). Enterprises grow, eat other enterprises and eventually become monopolies. These grow into cartels and these cartels eventually grow and become imperial in nature. Another characteristic of this production is that it has become social—the factory has grown to the size of a corporate, social endeavor—however, the “appropriation remains private” (20).

The second chapter is dedicated to the new role of the bank in this late capitalist development. However, because this industry also has a tendency to monopolize, “they become powerful monopolies having at their command almost the whole of the money capital of all the capitalists and small businessmen and also a large part of the means of production and of the sources of raw materials of the given country and in a number of countries” (27). This development both highlights and promotes the next driver of imperialism that Lenin highlights: that of finance capital.

Chapter 3 is dedicated to this factor. “Capitalism, which began its development with petty usury capital, ends its development with gigantic usury capital” (52). Countries are now able to, with the power that they wield through their consolidated banks and finance capital, sit back and lend money to industry which goes out and invests and is productive. The financier sits back and reaps the rewards while having not produced anything.

Chapter 4 looks at the process of exporting capital abroad. “Under the old capitalism, when free competition prevailed, the export of goods was the most typical feature. Under modern capitalism, when monopolies prevail, the export of capital has become the typical feature” (61). Lenin also criticizes those who would like to redistribute the profit to those who are less well off. He says that, “…if capitalism did these things it would not be capitalism; for uneven development and wrenched conditions of the masses are fundamental and inevitable conditions and premises of this mode of production. As long as capitalism remains what it is, surplus capital will never be utilized for the purpose of raising the standard of living of the masses in a given country, for this would mean a decline in the profits for the capitalist” (62).

The next chapter is titled, “The division of the world among capitalist combines”. The word “combine” here should be read as the word “cabal”. At this even higher stage of capitalist production, “we see plainly here how private monopolies and state monopolies are bound up together in the age of finance capital; how both are but separate links in the imperialist struggle between the big monopolists for the division of the world” (72-3).

The next chapter deals with the colonial division of the globe by the superpowers of Lenin’s time. He makes a point that there is a deterministic link between the movement from monopoly capitalism, to finance capitalism and then to colonialism (79). He also highlights how different proletariat groups are united under their imperialist flag, and against the internationalist cause (80). While colonialism has existed at least since the Romans, this is the first time that all of the raw materials were held in the hands of so few private interests.

Chapter 7 is about imperialism and how it represents a unique stage in the development of capitalism. The briefest definition of imperialism by Lenin is that of monopoly capitalism, but this is too parsimonious. He lists 5 characteristics: 1. concentration of production in monopolies; 2. merging of bank and industrial capital; 3. export of capital; 4. international capitalist monopolies dominate and divide globe; 5. territorial separation of world by capitalist powers. (90). This then leads to a struggle amongst existing world imperial powers and newly arrived imperial powers (see Japan in the early 20^th century) (98).

Chapter 8 regards the decay of capitalism, and highlights an earlier theme of laziness and usury. There is, in Lenin’s eyes, a tendency to stagnation and decay. Chapter 9 is a critique of imperialism focusing on its ineffectual nature. Chapter 10 places imperialism in a historical context and argues against other theorists who do not conform to Lenin’s theoretical framework.

Lenin: State and Revolution

Lenin, Vladimir Il Ich. (1935). State and revolution, Marxist teaching about the theory of the state and the tasks of the proletariat in the revolution. New York,: International publishers.

Originally written in 1917, this text has done much to formulate an orthodox Marxist interpretation of the state, and the transition from capitalist society to communist society. The text deals explicitly with Engle’s formulation of the “withering away of the state” and attempts to resuscitate its understanding from the jaws of critics of Marxism.

Firstly, Lenin must define and describe what characterizes a state. “The state is the product and the manifestation of the irreconcilability of class antagonisms. The state arises when, where, and to the extent that the class antagonisms cannot be objectively reconciled” (8 emphasis in original). The state is the mediator of class difference and class tension. In the bourgeois-democratic state of Lenin’s time, the state was also, “an organ of domination of a definite class which cannot be reconciled with its antipode” (9 emphasis in original).

The state must have a territory. It also must have an aspect of armed power. “Engles develops the conception of that ‘power’ which is termed the state—a power arising from society, but placing itself above it and becoming more and more separate from it. What does this power mainly consist of? It consists of special bodies of armed men who have at their disposal prisons, etc.” (10).

“In the Communist Manifesto are summed up the general lessons of history, which force us to see in the state the organ of class domination, and lead us to the inevitable conclusion that the proletariat cannot overthrow the bourgeoisie without first conquering political power, without obtaining political rule, without transforming the state into the ‘proletariat organized as the ruling class’; and that this proletarian state will begin to wither away immediately after its victory, because in a society without class antagonisms, the state is unnecessary and impossible” (25 emphasis in original).

“A Marxist is one who extends the acceptance of class struggle to the acceptance of the dictatorship of the proletariat” (30 emphasis in original).

“The forms of bourgeois states are exceedingly variegated, but their essence is the same: in one way or another, all these states are in the last analysis inevitably a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. The transition from capitalism to Communism will certainly bring a great variety and abundance of political forms, but the essence will inevitably be only one: the dictatorship of the proletariat” (31).

This transition is directly tied to the concept of democracy, which Lenin goes on to describe as true equality. “Democracy for an insignificant minority, democracy for the rich—that is the democracy of capitalist society” (72). “Marx splendidly grasped the essence of capitalist democracy, when, in analyzing the experience of the Commune, he said that the oppressed were allowed, once every few years, to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class should be in parliament to represent and repress them!” (73). It only becomes possible to truly address the concept of freedom in Lenin’s construction through the withering of the state.

“The replacement of the bourgeois by the proletarian state is impossible without a violent revolution. The abolition of the proletarian state, i.e., of all states, is only possible through ‘withering away’ (20 emphasis in original).

The first phase of Communist society, a society that is described as “coming out of the womb of capitalism” (76), involves the transition of the means of production out of the hands of private interests and into the hands of the multitude. However, equality will be difficult to achieve, as different people produce differently and have different needs. “The state will wither away completely [and the higher phase of Communist society will be achieved] when society has realized the rule: ‘From each according to his ability; to each according to his needs’” (79). Socialism can be called the lower phase of development and Communism for the higher phase.